


The First Five Seconds

by FZZT



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew as he wakes, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8051413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FZZT/pseuds/FZZT
Summary: On waking, there are five seconds where anything is possible.This is not a good thing for Andrew, except for when it is.





	The First Five Seconds

**Author's Note:**

> This was written to the Stranger Things score and I like to think that explains the italics.

Neil is gone.

Neil is gone and that means Andrew has to be gone too; has to run and search and _find._

These are the thoughts to which he wakes every morning, the other side of the bed cold and unmade – signs of life without the confirmation. These are the thoughts that fill the first five seconds.

He heard the leaving, felt the dip and then rise of the mattress as the body – no, the person, no,  _Neil_ _–_ stood up, but that was hours ago. Or maybe it wasn’t? It was darker then, he didn’t see it happen. Now it is bright, the dawn long gone -  _like Neil_ \- and the morning well-established.

The seconds move on – six, seven, eight, and beyond – and logic slowly begins to seep into his understanding of the world. Of course Neil is gone, he goes every morning, off to run like the bundle of irony he always is. Running and running and running but always coming back. This Andrew knows, this Andrew has to know. He stands, reaching blindly for something to put on his feet, mind resolutely avoiding the possibilities. This is easier now that the day is minutes old, now that his thoughts are his own. They are always his own, true, but now it feels like he owns them.

The possibilities don't stop, that’s the problem, that has always been the problem. They are not all violent but in a way that's worse.

If Neil is shot, if he is stabbed, if he is tortured, if he is beaten and broken and _taken_ , then it’s easy to assign blame. That is on him because that is within his power to stop.

But if Neil has a heart attack, if he drowns, if he goes and dies in some horrifically _normal_ manner then whose fault is it? Who is to blame? The easy answer is Neil himself but Andrew has never been one for easy, and besides that’s not quite true. The right answer is that nobody is to blame. Not the arteries, not the water, not the universe. That’s just life, or lack thereof and it’s _haunting_. Because the thing is, Andrew can protect against a person, or many people. He can threaten and fight his way through life so that Neil never has to be reunited with the kiss of a blade, never again has to feel flesh melt or bones pop. That he can do, that he is good at, that he _revels_ in.

But his heart? Lungs filled with water? Andrew can’t punch the sea, can't force life, or the universe, or  _whatever_ , to reconsider.

Every morning is the same; five torturous seconds as he takes in the empty bed, as his mind flickers through the possibilities unwilled, as he struggles to come back to _himself and here and_ _now_.

No, that’s not true, not every morning is the same.

Other mornings, there is a body beside him – awake or not it doesn’t matter. These days can go one of two ways – either nothing happens or too much. It depends on where his mind goes, whether the body registers as _Neil, safe, home_ or something else entirely, something cold but burning, something old and predatory and _wrong._  When this happens it lasts far longer than five seconds; he hits six, seven, eight, nine, and on and on and on without reprieve.

These are the worst days.

It’s getting quieter, that part of him. These days are rare now. He isn’t naive enough to think they’ll ever go away completely– he has been hurt too much for that sort of hope, that sort of optimism and belief. Besides, his belief is elsewhere now, what little there is. _What little there is_ , he thinks, as if it wasn’t getting larger, as if it wasn’t swelling disgustingly in a gross betrayal to a boy, to a teenager, to a man. He had sworn _never_ , had whispered it, screamed it, had the marks to prove it. He had even believed it, in a sick sort of irony. As that belief falls, as it _fails,_ the other, better, brighter sort grows.

But that is outside of the first five seconds. No, not really, it’s there within him but it’s always there so it doesn’t count. Or does it count more? These are questions he tries not to contemplate because the answers, the potentials, are too immense and too real. They could ruin him or make him and he isn’t willing to take the chance. Not yet. This too will come with time.

But not in the first five seconds.

They can be nice too, they can be a slow awakening, far removed from the sharpness and the wrong. They can be golden and screw the saying because he will fight for this gold – _it will stay_. Except it’s not golden, not really; it’s soft red and it’s piercing blue and it’s warm but not too warm and it’s soft but not too soft. He hates it. He hates it and he wants it and there’s another word just out of reach and it’s too much but he can’t stop. No, he could stop, but he _won’t_. The distinction is important. This he has chosen.

These days are, if not good, manageable.

But sometimes they are good. This too is a choice he has made.

**Author's Note:**

> Re: Punching the sea - my friend once drunkenly beat up the River Boyne so really anything is possible.
> 
> This is quite different to what I'm used to writing, so feedback is very welcome.
> 
> (i'm on tumblr at [palmettostatevixens](http://www.palmettostatevixens.tumblr.com))


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